case of the aged, the eyes lose some of that unconscious focusing ability. It has long been known that water or glass can distort objects viewed through them. This may be because the atoms cast off by objects are diverted from their straight course by the dense packing of atoms in the medium through which they pass.’ I was speaking as simply as I could, and I was glad to see that Edward understood this lesson.
‘All this being so, I have decided that these accidental distortions can be refined to the point where they offset the lost ability of the eyes to do their job. I have been thinking for some years of a set of mathematical formulae that could be applied to the shape of lenses so that every defect of vision could be exactly offset. These formulae have so far eluded my understanding – on account, I am sure, of a lack of precise empirical knowledge. However, I found, shortly before leaving Constantinople, that some degree of offset can be achieved by trial and error. I am now taking advantage of the Caliph’s hospitality to push these efforts further. Perhaps, it is by such trial and error that the knowledge will grow on which some abstract, all-explaining theory can be based. But it is enough for me at the moment that I shall, before evening, be able to read for myself again.’
I snapped my fingers and called to the workman who was holding my lenses. I took them back and held them up to see out of the window. ‘No,’ I went on, ‘I’m not able to see Damascus at all through these. The shape of the city is more blurred than with nothing at all. To see distant objects, we shall need to work on some other convexity of the glass. But if I hold these lenses in the right position, I can easily read the lettering on this letter from His Highness the Governor of Syria.
‘It says, by the way, that His Majestic Holiness the Caliph has been called away by the needs of war with the Empire. In his place, the Governor of Syria invites us to a banquet to be held in my honour tomorrow evening.’ As I spoke, one of the slaves wandered in and gave me a despairing look. Keeping the door shut had confined the dust of all that I’d commanded. But I could see the charcoal smoke had caused some resentment. I wrinkled my nose at his dustpan and brush and waved him from the room. He slammed the door as he went. I turned back to Edward.
‘So, made young again by artificial hair and artificial teeth – and now, I hope, by artificial eyes,’ I said, ‘I plan to see how closely we are held prisoner in this most glorious of palaces. If possible, we shall tour the shops of Damascus tomorrow morning, and spend more of my gold on silken robes finer than the tailors of Beirut can imagine.’ Edward nodded. I could see he was still upset with me. But that would have to be. I handed the lenses back, and wondered if my demand for ‘immediate’ work would allow me to spend all evening among my books. I’d picked up a Saracen chronicle of the last big war with the Empire that might repay my attention.
‘As for you, Edward,’ I continued, ‘I have not forgotten your own bodily needs. At dusk, a deputy of the eunuch we met yesterday will attend on you in your bedchamber. As in Beirut, I advise you to be honest about your tastes. You have arrived at an age where the physical pleasures can be enjoyed at their fullest. Do not waste this time.’
I got up and went over to the glass cutter to suggest a refinement that had just come to mind. Suddenly, I remembered the messenger. Squatting on his haunches, he’d been waiting politely beside one of the larger cutting wheels. His master deserved nothing at all – from me or anyone else. The messenger, though, deserved an answer.
Chapter 36 And Yazid wrote unto his father Muawiya, saying: The Greeks take fright and starve behind the walls of their great city on the two waters. With all the new might you have sent me, I will storm their walls. By the grace of God, O Father, before you read these words, the capital of the world will be yours. As it was prophesied, so you will sit upon the Throne of the Caesars, and the Message of God shall be spread through all the nations of the world. But the Old One al-Arik readied himself once more to snatch victory from the Faithful. To the generals of Caesar he said: Degenerate, unworthy seed of the Greeks, bearded women who never speak but to counsel rendering up our city to the Men of the Desert; yea, let me take this war into mine own hands. Old as I am, yet shall I deliver us. And al-Arik sought out one al-Inkus, a man of Syria, and gave him money, saying: Give as thou hast promised, and I will reward thee an hundredfold more. And al-Inkus gave as his father had found among the learning of the Egyptians. And the day of battle dawned, and three score and ten thousand of the Faithful prepared themselves, and the sound of their battle cry reached unto the Infidels of the North, whose own numbers were as the grains of the desert sand, and who stood on the far shore to wait the command of Yazid; and the Infidel King said: The Men of the Desert shall know victory this day; let us prepare ourselves to take the Greeks from behind, and ours too shall be the mountains of gold and precious jewels and the fair virgins that are sheltered by the walls of the City. But al-Arik stood on the walls of the City on the Two Waters, and gave orders that the great chain of defence be lifted; and from behind this there came five ships, and these five ships were as al-Inkus had been commanded to fit them. And among the numberless ships of the Faithful the five ships of al-Arik sailed; and
I looked up. I’d come across a Saracen word I didn’t recognise. And, even with my two lenses to sharpen that elaborate, flowing script, the wavering lamplight wasn’t enough for my old eyes to continue drinking in the narrative. But I’d read enough. Back in Beirut, I’d been assured that this was the standard history of the late war. It had little analysis, and the collapsing of two vast, opposed enterprises into a series of personal exchanges was a sure sign of barbarism. Even so, the writer had got his facts more or less as I’d myself let them seep out into the world. I thought back to that night meeting of the Imperial Council, where I alone had faced down those useless generals. The walls of Constantinople – ‘incapable of holding’? I’d never heard such nonsense! They’d looked down once too often over that double sea of campfires, and their hearts had died within them. Constantine himself had attended the meeting got up by his eunuchs as a common fisherman, bag of gold tied to his waist.
The Saracen chronicler was right enough that it had all been down to me. But for me, Constantinople would now be the seat of the caliphs. Scrubbed and whitewashed, the Great Church would echo to the mournful wail of the muezzin. The Danube and Rhine would already have been crossed, and, one by one, the Germanic kingdoms would be going down before that terrible cry of God is Great. Instead of all that, we controlled the seas. Instead of that, the Greek provinces of the Empire had been made impregnable. Instead of that, the Saracens had been forced into the second best alternative of expansion towards the rivers of India.
I smiled and rubbed my eyes. I’d rather have been famous as the man who’d cut taxes and controls, and humanised justice, and given land to the ordinary people and let them keep and bear arms. Perhaps I might be that after another hundred years, when my reforms had fully renewed the Empire. For the moment, there was worse than being called ‘the Old One al-Arik’.
‘You can take me to bed in a moment,’ I said in Syriac. I’d caught the faint scraping again of sandals on the tiled floor, and felt ashamed of how angry I’d been earlier. It was very late. The last time I’d got up for a piss, I’d looked out of the window. There hadn’t been a single light burning in Damascus. The moon might have shone above a deserted city. So far as I could tell, the palace itself was in complete silence. Edward must have finished with his whores and drunk himself blotto. Only I was still awake, rejoicing in the partial restoration of sight – I and some poor slave who might have been on his feet since the previous dawn. He’d only been doing his duty with those regular coughs and coded offers of boiled fruit juice. I slid a bone marker over the sheet where I’d finished, and rolled the papyrus book shut. I took up a pen and made a note for myself about my lens makers. The glass discs immediately available had all been five inches across. But the results were unmanageably large. We’d see how it went with three or even two inches. I wondered if that would make them harder to work. Unless I’d been given inferior workmen, Syrian glass didn’t seem anywhere near so good as Greek. Perhaps I should order a dig in one of the ruined palaces I’d been hurried past by Karim. If cloudy with age, old glass might not have so many bubbles in it.
‘You can let me sleep until I wake by myself,’ I said as the sandals came closer still and stopped just behind me. ‘I’ve made a list of books on this papyrus sheet. Have the goodness to give it to one of the clerks when they come in. I want-’
I did see the dark cord as it was slipped over my head. But I barely had time to register the fact when I felt the knot against my throat and it being pulled tight. There was a sudden flash of coloured lights in my head as I felt myself pulled up and backwards. I heard the scrape and crash of my chair as it went over. I heard the sharp, excited breathing of the man behind me.
Unless the cord is so thin that it cuts your head off, strangulation is – compared with most other forms of murder – a pretty slow death. But, supposing the noose is properly arranged, you black out almost at once, and there’s not much to be done in the way of self-defence. That doesn’t make you completely helpless, however. I still had the pen in my hand. Almost without thinking, I swung my right arm upwards and behind me. I hit something hard, and the pen glanced off. I struck out again and again, until I got lucky. I felt the sharp reed sink into something soft. With a cry of pain, the man moved left out of my reach, stooping down until I felt his head just behind mine. The knot loosened just long enough for me to take in a ragged lungful of air. Then it was tight again. I
